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P.S.: would you buy a house form a guy named Gerard “Stick” Thibodeaux?
THINKING SMALL
Huge Village at Sandhill project to get country town design
BY MYA FRAZIER
Question: How do you create a small-town environment in a 300-acre mixed-used development? Answer: You figure it out, especially if that’s the only way you can get it though the public approvals process.
That was the challenge facing Kahn Development Co.’s proposal for the massive Village at Sandhill, now under construction in Richland County, a booming suburb of Columbia, S.C.
Locals had become attached, not to mention possessive, about the project’s site: a tract of wilderness. So they were less than thrilled about plans to develop it.
To get approval, Columbia-based Kahn Development had to emphasize Sandhill’s small-town characteristics.
“The vision is for this to be the town center with a small-town feeling where you can walk around,” said T. Cary McSwain, the Richland County administrator. “It’s not just another big-box development. If it had been another big Wal-Mart or Kmart, with acres of asphalt and all big-box buildings, it would have been more hotly opposed and never approved.”
The project may not be just another big-box development, but it is a big development, containing not only $240 million worth of retail space, but also residential and office space.
Three distinct components will make up Village of Sandhill’s retail space. They include The Forum, a 150,000-square-foot power center; The Town Center, a 220,000-square-foot lifestyle center where the developers expect to add a further 400,000-square-feet in two years; and The Marketplace, a 101,000-square-foot, grocery-anchored center providing service tenants. All three will be open this fall.
When all phases are complete, a sidewalk will link the Forum to the lifestyle center. Here shoppers will find two wide boulevards that intersect at the development’s center, on-street parking and the usual lifestyle suspects: Ann Taylor Loft, The Bombay Company, Chico’s, The Children’s Place, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Kirkland’s and Talbots, plus a variety of restaurants.
Two retailers — Cost Plus World Market and Rhodes Furniture — opened in the Forum in November. The power center will also contain a Sofa Express as well as a big-box appliance and electronics retailer that has still to be determined.
JCPenney is the first of three department store anchors the developers expect to commit to the site, according to Alan B. Kahn, president of Kahn Development. There’s no word yet on who the other two will be. JCPenney also anchors Columbia Place, a 1.1 million-square-foot super-regional mall about a 20-minute drive from Sandhill and owned by CBL & Associates. Columbia Place, which opened in 1977, will be the development’s largest and nearest competitor. Other anchors there include Dillard’s, Macy’s and Sears.
Kahn says he expects to add more big-box anchors to the Town Center, including a home improvement store, such as Home Depot. “We have a critical mass and a nucleus of the typical lifestyle center leaders you need to get the rest of the lifestyle kind of tenants,” he said.
In the Marketplace section there is a 61,000-square-foot Bi-Lo Supermarket that is set to open this month, plus some 40,000 square feet of service-oriented, neighborhood retailers, including a Hair Cuttery, a tanning salon and a couple of fast-casual restaurants. This section will also include three banks, an investment advisory firm and a home and casualty insurance firm.
Gerard “Stick” Thibodeaux, CLS, Kahn development’s vice president and director of leasing, says the entire development, including office and residential, will probably be completed within five years. He is seeking a joint venture with a regional or national home builder to develop apartments and homes, but says he has no other details except that he believes construction will begin this summer.
A hundred acres of the site are zoned for offices, with an additional 20 or so acres set aside for housing. Construction on this, too, is to start this summer. Thibodeaux says the office market is soft in the area, and his firm will probably develop the office portion on its own. “We are focusing on developing the retail right now,” he said.
Tying all these elements together has been the biggest challenge, says Thibodeaux. While it was important to maintain a pedestrian aesthetic, it was also essential to provide convenient vehicular access around the development.
Tenants and shoppers insist on easy parking in particular, says David Herbert, a partner at Beame Architectural Partnership of Coral Gables, Fla., which designed the development.
“Tenants wanted more convenience parking in front of the store,” he said. “Sure, you want to cater to those who want to stroll and get entertainment, but there’s also the shopper who has less time to buy something and wants to do it quickly and get out.”
Besides, not everyone is into walking.
“Most people are not comfortable with more than a five- or 10-minute walk,” said Thibodeaux. “If a shopper is at Bi-Lo getting groceries, they are not going to walk over to the Home Depot that is 300 yards away. They are going to get in their car and drive there.”
To gain the maximum number of storefront parking spots, Kahn Development nixed the traditional parallel-parking formations found at most lifestyle centers in favor of angled parking. This yielded 4,000 spots for the three retail sections. Furthermore, angled parking makes getting in and out easier. Kahn says he has heard complaints about traffic backing up at other centers because drivers, especially those armed with SUVs, have a hard time parallel parking.
And with the locals finally appeased over losing their wilderness, the last thing Kahn wants to do is get them stirred up again over parking.
